The Tottenham Hotspur attacker has come under fire from supporters back home for his decision during this international break
Mohammed Kudus' decision to withdraw from international duty with Ghana in order to continue his fitness and recovery work has been defended by a key man back home.
The 26-year-old was called up by Ghana boss Carlos Queiroz for the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers against the Ivory Coast and Gambia as well as a friendly against Morocco, but the Tottenham attacker asked to be allowed to withdraw from the squad in order to work on his fitness and sharpness back at Hotspur Way over this three week period.
Kudus has only recently returned to action after eight months out of competitive football with a quad injury. He is yet to start a Premier League game this season for Roberto De Zerbi but did play 75 minutes in the Carabao Cup defeat at Liverpool last week while coming off the bench four times in the league.
Kudus' withdrawal, combined with Manchester City’s Antoine Semenyo and Sheffield United's Jordan Ayew along with others stepping out of the squad, has provoked criticism back home in Ghana.
However, Ghana football association executive council member Frederick Acheampong defended Kudus and his team-mates for their decisions.
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"There have been a lot of conspiracy theories and speculations about the withdrawal of the Black Stars players," he said, as quoted by GhanaWeb. "Kudus gave something on compassionate grounds, with the fact that he had been injured for so long and he is now returning, so they should excuse him without any malicious intent.
"It’s one way for people to draw those conclusions. For me, I think it is an opportunity for those called up to shine. If someone takes over a position, then that’s it. People got such chances and grabbed them with both arms, and it was difficult to take them out."
Queiroz said on Monday of Kudus' withdrawal: "It is simple for you guys to understand: over the course of our decision, we have the club games. "As national team coach, we can't control the decisions of the other coaches. In the course of our observations and conversations, it looked like Kudus was moving in the right direction.
"I had to make the decision on Wednesday or Thursday with the matches, that I was able to scout and make the right observations but later on other information about the status of the player after he played 70 something minutes, unfortunately the news was that they were not progressing in the direction that we expect.
"In my final conversation with Kudus, we realised that the best decision was to protect his progress and recovery process and keep the hope that in this period with more training and more games in the legs, in the next round, Kudus will be ready to be with us. In this moment for him, the most sensitive situation is that he can't take the risk to have a setback like he had before. Nobody wants to take that risk.
"We have decisions with informations that we have in the end, when they come, I made the decision to release him because he was not ready to come."